Thursday, February 14, 2008

Foreign Policy in Focus, the "think tank without walls" will be featuring Split This Rock Poetry Festival throughout the next 6 weeks. Check them out at: www.fpif.org to read "In Vigil (2)," a poem by Lee Sharkey, one of the editors of Beloit Poetry Journal, which has produced a powerful special issue dedicated to Split This Rock poets. Order the journal from www.bpj.org.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Monday, June 4, 2007, I was supposed to be approved by the Nassau County (New York) Legislature as the County’s first Poet Laureate, having been unanimously endorsed by the Legislature’s six-member Nassau County Poet Laureate Panel. Instead, I sat in the chamber hearing myself attacked by Republican members of the Government Services & Operations Committee for having "condemned" the troops with my poetry. They rejected me 6-1, the Democrats, except for Legislator Wayne Wink, toppling over.

June 24, a sunny afternoon, poets gathered at Cedarmere, home of the famous 19th Century poet, William Cullen Bryant, and made me Poet Laureate by acclamation. House count (I call it the "lawn count" because people were assembled on the spacious lawn overlooking lovely Roslyn Harbor) was 173 -- poets, naturalists (I am a birder), activists, teachers, friends and family. I had "condemned the troops and their efforts in Iraq," Republican Legislator Francis Becker charged at the legislative meeting. "Earlier today," he continued, "we on the Republican side started to do our research and came up with this book [Iraq and Other Killing Fields: Poetry for Peace, which I published in 2004] and some other pieces that are on the Internet, all very, very damning to our troops overseas. This is not the time for that in a time of war."

Thirteen poets who had come for a celebratory event, found themselves signing up to speak in my defense. Evelyn Kandel, declaring that she had served as a U. S. Marine as I also had done, stated "That one book (the only one of my five books about war and peace, others being about nature) was the words of someone broken-hearted over what happens in war." "You know what?" snapped Legislator Dennis Dunne, also a former Marine, "he might have written a hundred books. This is the book I heard. You know what? You ain’t getting my vote."

While I stood speaking at the podium I found myself summoning up my techniques as an eight-grade English teacher to halt disturbances. I would stop talking, silently stared at the young culprits and always they stopped. Tallish Mr. Dunne had risen from his seat, walked over to Mr. Becker and looming over him carried on a conversation. I stopped, stood facing and staring at them. In this adult situation, however, it required Chairwoman Diane Yaturo to ask Mr. Dunne to sit down. He did.

I was trying to describe my mission as Poet Laureate which was to "make Nassau County an open classroom for poetry," to bring to residents the awareness that everybody has the ability to enjoy poetry. To show concern for the troops, I read "American Mourning Poem," in which I take the generic out of the word "troops" with short biographical stanzas of four service men and a service woman flown to Dover Air Force Base in flag-draped caskets. (The scene the Government does not want the press to photograph). The legislators were not an attentive audience.

My lone supporter, Legislator Wayne Wink, declared "I’m loss, quite frankly, as to what a Poet Laureate should be, if not someone who is actually going to bring attention to and perhaps stir things up in the name of poetry." Three poems in the book were cited by my detractors: "The Colonel Will Know When the Troops Can Go Home," "Torture," and "Iraq." All three were based on news stories. The poem "Iraq" was given prominent display the next day in Long Island’s major newspaper, Newsday. Later, the paper’s right-wing columnist, Raymond J. Keating, said of my poems, "there's a good deal of infantile, leftist tripe. How else could one possibly read lines like ‘Less-than-Elected-Vice-President Cheney evolves the Plan, the Empire of the United States of America, or comparing the Oklahoma City bombing to the Iraq War?'" Afterwards I had the eerie experience of watching the roll call vote, hearing the parade of "no’s" across the rostrum, including that of Democratic Chairwoman Yaturo. "Once I saw," she explained, "that he had picked an elected official -- the President -- to write about, it made me uncomfortable."

The media recognized this as a blatant example of an artist disciplined for speaking against a critical governmental policy. It sped across the nation via The New York Times and the Associated Press. My daughters, Dede in California, Emilie in Virginia and Nell in Maryland sat by their computers monitoring the Internet. "Here comes one!" Nell would shout that Wednesday evening when I sat in telephone contact with her and her daughter, Juliane, for an hour-and-a-half. "Here’s another one!" I would hear as new story came up. "You’re in Canada!" Nell calls out. The story was run by the Montreal Telegram, Toronto Star and a paper in Vancouver.

On June 11, the Boston Globe editorialized:

The hearing on Wheat’s appointment erupted into an argument aboutsupporting the troops. Nuance was lost. Tossing out this unruly poet, theunanimous choice of the nominating panel, came to seem like an act of valor.

Voted down by county legislators 6 to 1, Wheat nonetheless stands inthe proud tradition of poets who write about war, an unflinching group who dip their pens into the worst of battle.

Here are the poems cited by Wheat's detractors:

Iraq

Males and one womansip coffee mornings in the White House,talk of desires about Iraq.For ten yearsLess-than-Elected-Vice-President Cheneyevolves The Plan,the Empire of the United States of America.

Empire building requires "pre-emptive strikes."When is the strategic time to promote a strike against Iraq?Not summer,not with Less-than-Elected-President Bush vacationing in Crawford,ensconced in his golf cart,quipping "crawfished" about Saddam Hussein.

"From a marketing point of view,"says the White House Chief of Staff,"you don’t introduce new products in August."

He sits in front seat of armored Humveethirty yards from the Diyala River Bridge,gateway to southeastern Baghdad,encrypted radio phone nestled by his left ear.He is Hannibal with General George Patton appreciation of words."Lordy," he exclaims."Heck of a day. Good kills."

"Their blood is up," he brags of his men.Fifteen hundred marinescrouch, empty machine guns, M-16s,splay mortar shells from Abrams tanks, armored assault vehicles."We’re killing them like it’s going out of style."He points to black smoke other side of the 150-foot span.Boasts his men are establishing "violent supremacy."

"We’ll drill them," he asserts,learning suicide bombers are driving for the bridge.Boasts his "Boys are doing good."

Twenty bullet holes through front windshield of blue van.Bodies of two men in street clothes slumped in front seat.Body of woman in black chador crumpled on back floor.No cargo. No suitcases. No bombs."The crueler it is, the sooner it’s over," says The Colonel.

"It’s over for us when the last guy who wants to fight for Saddamhas flies crawling across his eyeballs."

Torture

Saddam Hussein Regime

Beat soles of feet with stick ("Bastinado")whip a prisoner’s headtwist arms, legs until they breakconfine in cold cells until arms, legs freezepress hot iron all over bodysit prisoner on cold bottle-like objectforced up rectumuse machines to remove human limbs, fingers to legsIf a child, make parents watchdump him into sack with starving catsPerfection of one hundred seven methods of torture.Order prisoner to choosefrom the State’s Menu of Torture

George W. Bush Administration

Make naked prisoner crouch 45 minutes, stand 72 hoursBalance black-hooded prisonerdraped in make-shift poncho on narrow boxwire his outstretched handswarn him he will be electrocuted if he fallsPose men in pyramid of nakednessstand (male and female soldiers) behind the "pile"laugh, hold thumbs up, take photographsgrind shoes down on fingers, toesBack naked man against cell doorconfront him with straining, growling dogsUnleash the Dogs of Democracy

Three guided walking tours will be offered on the Saturday morning of the Split This Rock festival. I'm very pleased to be coordinating the tours, because it's a great opportunity to remind participants of DC's rich, vibrant (and often overlooked) literary history. These tours will be fun--they are a wonderful way to take a walk around three neighborhoods and see them with new eyes! The tours will be offered concurrently, and are limited to the first 25 people who sign up for each. (You can sign up when you register for the festival.) Tours run from 10:30 am to noon on March 22.

"Walt Whitman's Washington" is a tour of the sites downtown where Whitman lived in boardinghouses, worked as a clerk for the Federal government, and volunteered in Civil War hospitals. The tour is led by Martin Murray, a nationally-known scholar specializing in Whitman's ten years of residence in DC. Martin is also the founder of the Washington Friends of Walt Whitman (http://www.whitmandc.org), this tour's sponsoring organization. Martin is adept at incorporating Whitman's own words into his tours, interweaving poems, letters, journal entries, and essays into the experience, which helps you visualize what the city was like during and after the Civil War, when downtown streets were unpaved, and there were no highrises, when almost every large building was taken over as a temporary hospital for wounded soldiers pouring into the city from battlegrounds to the south.

"GLBT Writers of Washington" will focus on the Dupont Circle neighborhood, an area where gay literary culture flourished from the 1970s to the present. Dan Vera is currently researching and writing this tour, which will include bookstores, clubs, Dupont Park, and writers homes. This tour is sponsored by White Crane, a magazine of gay wisdom and culture, of which Dan is Managing Editor (http://www.gaywisdom.org). Dan is also co-publisher of the DC-based Vrzhu Press, which publishes books of poetry, and a fine poet himself. I can't give many details of the tour as yet--it's still in progress! But Dan says he is excited to be learning so much about his literary forebears, and hopes to show in this tour the importance of community in supporting the work of writers such as Essex Hemphill, Ed Cox, Tim Dlugos, Michael Lally, Richard McCann, and Andrew Holleran.

"The 'Harlem' Renaissance in Washington" is my own tour of the greater U Street neighborhood. Despite its misleading name, the 'Harlem' Renaissance actually got its start in DC, and many of the literary stars of that movement lived here, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, Georgia Douglas Johnson, and Jessie Fauset. We'll talk about the Saturday Nighters salon, the 12th Street Y, the Association for Negro History, Howard University...most of the buildings and houses from the 1920s still stand (and are well preserved!) so it's easy to imagine what it might be like strolling the "Black Broadway" of U Street, perhaps all dressed up for a movie at the Lincoln Theater, or heading to True Reformers Hall for a concert by Duke Ellington's band. I hope to recreate that earlier time, when American letters were on the cusp of change. This tour is sponsored by Beltway Poetry Quarterly (http://www.beltwaypoetry.com).

Friday, February 1, 2008

Greetings from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference!

We are here in New York at a gathering of 7,000 writers. It's a tremendous pleasure to be here among so many like (and unlike) souls and to have the opportunity to meet people from around the country who are planning to make the trek to DC this Spring to come to the Split This Rock Poetry Festival.

We have a table at the bookfair (table 213) and will be here through Sunday. While we are here we are giving a writing assignment to those who stop by our table to write a haiku postcard to the president and we invite you to join us via cyberspace. Attached below are some of our favorites from yesterday's writings. We'll post again at the end of this day & tomorrow, so stay tuned...

Much love from all of us here in NYC, Melissa Tuckey

DEAR PRESIDENT:

MATH HAIKU

For not being aMath'metician, George Bush isA great divider.

--B. Geyer

Do you dream childrenin Kabul in Mosul killedby your certainty

-- Suzanne Gardinier

STATE OF THE UNION

I listenedwith earsmade of Napalm

-- Brian Dickson

Catch and release?A border crossing is nota fishing trip-- sir!

-- Jaime Jarvis

The world is watchingEmpire shatters as glassWhat's left? People. The Arts.

-- Robert M.

What is thesound of onepresident leavingoffice?A Great Celebration!

-- Marlon Fick

(P.S. I am reading names of postcards, so please drop me a note if I misspelled, or misread a name and I'll correct it)

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Blog This Rock

The blog of Split This Rock, the national network of socially engaged poets. Programs include a biennial national festival, readings, workshops, contests, the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism, e-publishing, youth programs, and campaigns that integrate poetry into movements for social change.

About Me

Blog This Rock is a community forum sponsored by Split This Rock, an organization that calls poets to the center of public life and celebrates and promotes socially engaged poetry.
You are invited to our nation’s capital for our next poetry festival in March 2016.
Split This Rock Poetry Festival will feature readings, workshops, panel discussions on poetry and social change, youth programming, films, parties, and activism—a unique opportunity to hone our activist skills while we assess and debate the public role of the poet and the poem in times of crisis.